OPENING SEGMENT- bad
Kurt comes out to hype up the PPV. He is interrupted by Miz (& pals), who is upset that he doesn’t have a match on the PPV yet. He points out that this is now the seconds straight PPV on which his Intercontinental Title won’t be defended. That’s a good point. Kurt is really bad at his job.
Kurt claims that he was about to announce something for Miz when Miz interrupted him, but I’m calling bullsh*t. It definitely seemed like Kurt was just going to run down the PPV matches, as he had already hit the top two. Anyway, Kurt books a Fatal 4-Way for tonight, with the winner getting a shot at Miz’s title at the PPV. The competitors in that match will be…
Matt Hardy, who has lost more than he has won in the past month.
Jeff Hardy, who just lost cleanly to Miz two weeks ago and hasn’t picked up a singles victory since.
Elias Sampson, who actually has something of a winning streak going on.
Jason Jordan, who hasn’t won a televised match in over a month, and included in that is not only a loss in #1 contendership battle royale for a shot at this same title, but also a pinfall loss to Miz at SummerSlam.

Miz makes the totally reasonable point that Jason Jordan doesn’t deserve this opportunity, although because this is WWE he doesn’t actually point out that Jordan has lost a bunch of matches recently. The fact that the WWE and ROH booking of their TV product have become similar is completely astounding to me.
Miz instead wants Axel or Bo to be in the match. He says some mean things about Kurt, to which Kurt responds “I’ve had it with your whining and complaining. Hopefully fatherhood will change you.” You all heard it! Kurt just talked about Miz’s child! Come on, Miz! This is your chance. You now have full rights to beat Kurt’s ass, and if you do a good enough job, Vince will reward you!
Miz calls Kurt a “deadbeat” and Kurt gets angry and Jason Jordan comes out and threatens to punch Miz’s teeth down his throat… but it would have been nice for someone to point out that Miz’s accusation is false (one of the announcers should have done this). After all, they went so far out of their way to insist that Kurt had no knowledge of the child, so can we please keep that point straight?
Jason Jordan suggests that Kurt add Axel and Bo into the match so that Miz “won’t have any excuses” when Jordan takes the title from him. On the one hand, I get what Jordan is saying, but on the other hand, I really don’t think anyone other than Miz should be pretending that Bo and Axel are in any way deserving of any sort of #1 contendership match.
Kurt says okay, and Miz points out to Jason Jordan that he is an idiot for decreasing his own chances of winning, and that was my initial reaction as well. Miz calls Kurt “incompetent,” and Jason Jordan responds by attacking Miz, as if this was some sort of terrible insult. He wound getting the best of all three heels in a brawl that looked really bad.

KURT ANGLE & JASON JORDAN BACKSTAGE- Kurt tells Jason not to get so emotional every time someone says something mean about him or Kurt. He tells Jason that the best way to get revenge on The Miz for the mean things he said is to win the #1 contednership match and take his title.

NIA JAX vs. ALEXA BLISS!- 2.5/10
Booker T is talking about how Alexa is being a “ring general” here in this singles match. The fans are chanting for Nia Jax. I don’t think that has ever happened before. I know she’s from San Diego, but this is San Jose, and Nia is the woman who injured Bayley with her recklessness. Unless they’re cheering for her because she injured Bayley, taking her off of TV and thus removing the stain of loser-hood that their city has been stained with due to their association with Bayley.
Okay… we’re, like, a minute and a half in, and I don’t understand why Alexa hasn’t just walked off yet. Nothing is on the line here, and it’s perfectly in character for Alexa to do so.

Ah. Here we go. Alexa walks off, but Sasha comes out and blocks her way, so Alexa turns around and runs… smack into Nia. We went to a commercial break. Stuff happened. Nia won, which I guess is the right finish if Alexa isn’t walking out. Then Sasha jumps Nia from behind like a total heel. Then Nia beat her up, so Sasha’s a loser, too. Then Bayley made her "big" return, and all three other women united against Nia and took her down with a triple spear, which was a great spot, but I don’t buy Alexa not turning around and running away.
Sasha and Bayley started jumping around and hugging like teenage girls, and I was so badly hoping that Alexa was going to lay them out with the title belt, but instead Alexa tried to pose with them, and for this terrible crime they assaulted her. Then they posed with her title like jerks, while Michael Cole defended their behavior by saying “nobody wants to be friends with Alexa Bliss!” which is clearly a lie. I mean... the other alternative is that all of the people who seem like her friends are actually Buddy Murphy’s friends, and the idea of Buddy Murphy having friends is laughable.
Anyway, Sasha and Bayley were both total heels in this segment and Alexa was a coward during her match, so… is Nia Jax the babyface now? Because that’s what it feels like.
(Emma wasn’t here because she’s still in Australia doing WWE stuff. If I were booking this I would have at least had a training video or something.)
They do a lot of plugging of things for tonight’s show. Included in this was the news that Roman will try to cut a promo on Cena again tonight. Thanks for the warning.

BROCK VS. STROWMAN VIDEO PACKAGE- awesome!

CESARO & SHEAMUS PROMO- they said that Rollins & Ambrose’s friendship was “fragile” and fake because is it based on selfishness. This dragged on for WAY too long. Then Rollins & Ambrose had to come out and respond, which wouldn’t have been awkward if they hadn’t told us that Gallows & Anderson vs. Sheamus & Cesaro was supposed to be happening now. Gallows & Anderson then came out and cut a promo on Sheamus & Cesaro for walking out on them last week. Then Gallows called them all “nerds,” which made Dean so angry that he started a fistfight. Is “nerd,” like, code for “child molester” or something? All of this talking was extremely boring, and the brawl felt completely forced. The babyfaces won the brawl, and when we came back from commercial we had a three-way tag match…

LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON vs. SHEAMUS & CESARO vs. SETH ROLLINS & DEAN AMBROSE- 8/10
Booker said Anderson was “a true mat technician.” I think technical and/or submission wrestling would be about the fourth thing that comes to my mind if you asked me to describe his in-ring style. He would later refer to a Tornado DDT as “innovative.”
Other than Booker T’s commentary pretty much everything about his match was awesome. I was pleasantly surprised to see how long they got, too (almost twenty minutes). Sheamus stole Ambrose’s pin on Anderson, which shocked me, because I was certain they were going to have Luke & Karl pick up the win and be added to the title match, just to avoid doing a direct Shield vs. Cesarmus rematch, and because standard WWE booking says that someone who has been so heavily involved with both teams in the build-up to the PPV will inevitably wind up in the PPV match, but they didn’t. Good for WWE for changing things up a bit.

MIZ GIVES AXEL & BO A PEP-TALK- they tease that Axel and Bo have ambitions of their own.

CENA VS. ROMAN VIDEO PACKAGE- bad, and in comparison with the Brock vs. Braun one, it just highlights everything that is wrong with this feud. That video package was all about these two unstoppable badass monsters fighting it out to determine which of them gets to be the champion. This feud is about two guys arguing over who draws the most money and puts on the best matches and who is the face of the company (pun not intended). Brock and Braun are feuding over something that can- and will- be decided by the outcome of a wrestling match. Roman and Cena are not, so why should I care about the outcome of their match?

KURT ANGLE & GOLDUST BACKSTAGE- Goldust was facing away from Kurt, so Kurt asks him “can I help you, Goldust?” and Goldust turns around… and he’s not wearing his facepaint, and I was 100% expecting him to ask Kurt “can you help me find my facepaint.” Instead, he wants another chance to defeat Bray Wyatt, which I think plays into some stuff that Bray said last week, but I don’t remember because Bray has been saying irrelevant sh*t for so long that nothing he says ever sticks with me.
Kurt is hesitant to book the match because Bray kicked Goldust’s ass with ease last week. Since when has that ever stopped someone from booking a wrestling match before? Dustin asks Kurt not as Goldust but as Dustin, and brings up the fact that Kurt knew Dusty. I’m not denying that they knew each other, but I don’t think we ever got any sort of indication that Kurt and Dusty were particularly close, either in real life or in kayfabe. Kurt gives in, and Dustin vows that “Bray Wyatt will never forget the name Dustin Rhodes.”

CURT HAWKINS PROMO- He’s on 114 match losing streak. Why has he not been fired? Or at least sent back down to NXT? He’s Curt Hawkins, not Kenta Kobashi. He doesn’t have any sort of potential, and even if he did, he hasn’t kayfabe shown it by ever coming close to winning.

CURT HAWKINS vs. APOLLO CREWS (w/Titus O’Neil)- 2/10
During this match, Michael Cole mentioned that Titus O’Neil had “led Tozawa to the Cruiserweight Championship” and my initial reaction to that was “he did?” Yes. It’s been less than a month, and I have already forgotten that Tozawa ever won the title. That’s why you don’t do short title reigns and then just randomly take a former champion off of TV. Hawkins lost.

BAYLEY HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE TITLE MATCH AT NO MERCY- they announced this on Facebook Live, which is fine and all, but I would have preferred it if they had actually reminded us that Bayley had already earned a title shot when she got injured, and this is just her getting a shot she rightfully deserves.

ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- very good
The announcers keep pushing Roman vs. Cena as “a match we never thought we’d see,” but I don’t feel that way at all. Everyone faces off at some point, so Roman vs. Cena always felt inevitable to me, just like Ambrose vs. Cena does, and Rollins vs. Strowman, and Owens vs. Orton, etc.
They let Roman come out and say the word “sh*t” in an attempt to get him over as being edgy and cool and non-PG. #BRMBookedItFirst. Also in an attempt to be edgy, he mentioned Alex Riley.
Roman then calls Cena a hypocrite, using his big promo on the Rock about Rock abandoning wrestling for Hollywood, and while I don’t think the situations are quite analogous (Cena has never tried to shy away from wrestling while in doing TV or movies the way Rock did), it definitely does make Cena look bad. Roman revealed that Cena isn’t here tonight, and he finished up by reworking Cena’s promo on The Rock into his own promo on Cena. Artistically, this was really great, and Roman’s delivery was excellent, but it doesn’t feel like something Roman himself came up with, which seemed to be what Cena was getting on Roman’s case about. If Roman is someone who needs something scripted for him every time then that’s fine by me (so long as the script is good), but it doesn’t really address the issue. It doesn’t give me confidence that Roman is ready to take on Cena’s role like he says he is.

RENEE YOUNG INTERIVEWS THE HARDY BOYZ- good
Renee asked them what will happen if it comes down to the two of them having to fight each other in the #1 contendership match tonight. Matt said, “My brother and I… we have been fighting since the day he first stepped out of his crib. All of the innovative offense we do to our opponents, we did it to each other first.” Are you telling me that an infant Jeff Hardy was climbing onto coffee tables to hit toddler Matt with a Swanton?
Actually, I can picture that, and I would totally believe it.

BRAY WYATT vs. “DUSTIN RHODES”- 2.5/10
The match was short, but was a wonderful illustration of where WWE has gone wrong with this whole Balor “Demon” thing, and why this whole angle just doesn’t work for me. Dustin Rhodes came out without any facepaint on… but he still came out to his Goldust music, wearing his Goldust suit, and wrestled like Goldust, while earlier in the night he did his Goldust mannerisms backstage. They can say all they want that Goldust is an “alter-ego” of Dustin Rhodes but they did nothing to show it to me other than have an absence of some paint, and thus it comes off as completely superficial. The same goes for Balor’s “Demon.” He wrestles no differently, and aside from doing some interpretive dance during his entrance, he behaves no differently. Thus, when they try to tell me that this PPV match will be “man vs. man” with no Demon at all, I fail to see why I should think this will be any different from the match these two had at SummerSlam, even though the idea that things will be different is the entire selling point of the match.

FINN BALOR PROMO FROM THE TITANTRON- about as good as a promo in this feud could possibly be (which isn’t particularly good).

BOBBY HEENAN VIDEO TRIBUTE- touching.

ENZO AMORE PROMO- he got obliterated by Braun Strowman, and I laughed my ass off.
That being said, getting knocked out with one blow is not what you want to be doing with a guy who is getting a title shot in six days. Once Braun left, Neville showed up and hit Enzo with a Red Arrow.

NEVILLE vs. GRAN METALIK- 5/10
This was pretty great for the time it got. Neville ripped Metalik’s mask for cheap heat.

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH PROFILE- first, will someone please explain to me why Hispanic Heritage Month starts in the middle of September? Secondly, and more importantly, why does WWE insist on doing these things on people who have nothing to do with wrestling? Tonight’s was Jenifer Lopez. Are Mil Mascaras or Eddie Guerrero or Pedro Morales not mainstream enough for WWE?

THE DRIFTER SINGS A SONG- He has not only had his “The Drifter” nickname taken from him, but he has now had his last name stolen from him as well. Why does WWE do this?

SIX PACK CHALLENGE FOR AN INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE SHOT AT NO MERCY: Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy vs. “The Drifter” Elias Sampson vs. Bo Dallas vs. Curtis Axel- 6/10
Miz watched the match from ringside. He interfered several times. Jordan won. I don’t care about him at all. Miz tried to attack Jordan after the match. Jordan got the better of him until the Miz-Tourage came in and beat Jordan down. Miz then laid him out with a Skull-Crushing Finale and cut a good promo on him.

This was a pretty good episode of Raw, which feels quite rare nowadays, and as a go-home show it was excellent.

I hate that people have no last names anymore. Real people have first and last names. Ungh. I was pissed when they lost "Antonio" from Antonio Cesaro, and now I'm mad that they dropped Sampson. It's dumb.

I hate that people have no last names anymore. Real people have first and last names. Ungh. I was pissed when they lost "Antonio" from Antonio Cesaro, and now I'm mad that they dropped Sampson. It's dumb.

Right. I can kind of understand it if the person just isn't given one from the beginning, but there is zero reason to take one away, and also no reason not to give a last name if we can all logically figure out what it is (Like Nattie or Charlotte, neither of whom had last names when they debuted and Charlotte only got hers this year. I think Nattie is still officially just Natalya in all official listings, even though they've promoted her as Anvil's daughter since the beginning).